Council votes to sponsor Aurora Pride, revise pit bull question at 3rd meeting disrupted by protests

AURORA | Supporters of Kilyn Lewis brought a third consecutive meeting of Aurora’s City Council to a halt Monday, again prompting the council to continue its meeting in a nearby room, where it voted to approve new union contracts for first responders, sponsor an annual LGBTQ pride event and rephrase a ballot question related to the ownership of pit bulls.

After the July 8 meeting where the council voted to modify its agenda in a way that denied dozens of demonstrators the opportunity to speak, a smaller crowd showed up and was able to address the council during open public comment.

The group placed the death of Lewis, an unarmed Black man who was shot May 23 by an Aurora police officer while raising his hands, in the context of Aurora police injuring and killing other unarmed people of color.

Demonstrators again criticized the city for what they described as a failure to hold troubled police officers accountable for misconduct and demanded consequences for Michael Dieck, who shot and killed Lewis.

“I’m going to keep showing up until justice is served,” said Lewis’ mother, LaRonda Jones, saying she believed Dieck deserves to be sentenced to life imprisonment. “It’s not easy for me. I cannot sleep at night, because when I close my eyes, all I can see is my son just lying on the ground, and imagining his voice, saying, ‘I ain’t got nothing.'”

Multiple speakers exceeded the council’s three-minute limit on comments by individuals, and upon reaching the one-hour limit for all comments unrelated to agenda items, a majority of the council rejected a motion by Councilmember Crystal Murillo to hear the remaining eight speakers.

As they had during the two previous meetings, demonstrators then marched toward the council dais with their hands raised, chanting Lewis’ name, while police officers lined up in front of the dais and council members exited the Paul Tauer Council Chamber through a rear door.

The remaining speakers took the podium one by one, addressing interim police chief Heather Morris, while the council proceeded with its agenda in the nearby Aurora Room, this parallel meeting being projected on screens in the council chamber.

“Community simply wanted to be heard,” Auon’tai Anderson said while addressing those in the chamber. The former Denver Public Schools board member has taken on a leadership role throughout the protests that began last month as communications director for the Justice for Kilyn Lewis Action Committee.

Near the end of the council meeting, broadcasting from the Aurora Room, Councilmember Stephanie Hancock responded to criticism of comments she had made July 8, when she referred to protesters who showed up that night as “terrorists.”

“For those who are upset about my choice of words when I said ‘terrorists’ in this modern vernacular of how people use the word ‘terrorists,’ I apologize if you found that inflammatory,” she said, adding that she disapproved of how protesters subsequently disrupted her July 11 town hall meeting.

Hancock also said that she “didn’t call anyone specifically a terrorist.”

While she described the shooting of Lewis as “tragic” and said she had met privately with Jones the week before, Hancock said she would not let criticism by demonstrators discourage her from serving her constituents. And, along with Mayor Mike Coffman, she stressed that the city council is prohibited by the city’s charter from unilaterally firing police officers.

“He has the right to due process, just like anyone else,” Hancock said of Dieck, and was heckled by those watching the broadcast of the meeting in the Paul Tauer Council Chamber. “As a city council, we can’t get involved in this. And I know you don’t like it, and you’ll keep screaming and hollering, but that will not change things.”

Protests over Lewis’ death have continued since late June, when the Aurora Police Department released body-worn camera footage of his fatal shooting by police and acknowledged he was unarmed.

The shooting is currently under investigation by the 18th Judicial District’s Critical Incident Response Team, which has the power to recommend criminal charges for Dieck, as well as APD’s Internal Investigations Bureau.

Aurora council debates reservoir rules but votes to support LGBTQ pride event

Swept off the council’s July 8 agenda in the same procedural move that denied Kilyn Lewis supporters the chance to speak, a resolution from Councilmember Alison Coombs declaring the city’s support and sponsorship of Aurora Pride returned Monday and earned the support of the majority of the council.

The sponsorship will come in the form of a $7,500 reduction in price for the annual LGBTQ celebration to book the Aurora Reservoir all day Aug. 3. That amount was lowered from $15,000 after Councilmember Francoise Bergan said she secured $7,500 in private funding to help facilitate the event.

Hancock again tried to remove Coombs’ item from the agenda and postpone consideration of it indefinitely, saying it needed to have been brought earlier to be integrated into the city’s budgeting process and that she disagreed with any organization reserving all of the reservoir.

“I believe everybody already knew it wasn’t going to be something we could fund,” she said. “It’s unfair to have one group rent out the entire park, and we never should have done it in the first place.”

Coombs said she had been told by city staffers that a council meeting was an appropriate forum to bring up the request and that, by avoiding a vote on the question of the sponsorship like it had the week prior, the council was turning its back on LGBTQ residents.

“Part of it’s about funding, but part of it’s also about sending that message to our community that, yes, you are welcome and valued here,” Coombs said.

“Removing it from the agenda or voting ‘no’ tells the LGBTQ+ people in this city that uniquely this council, not any of the previous conservative city councils that have governed this city, doesn’t believe we should have a safe space for one day to celebrate our community.”

Zander Oklar, executive director of Aurora Pride, also said the event would be in “a very difficult spot” if the council did not go through with the sponsorship that it has historically not balked at. He brought up how Aurora Pride brings visitors to the city who pay taxes on food, drinks and parking, totaling an estimated positive economic impact of more than $300,000.

While Hancock and Councilmember Jurinsky both said they believed the matter of organizations booking the entire reservoir needed to be dealt with ahead of the Aug. 3 event for which Oklar said tickets have already been sold, the rest of the council expressed its support for again sponsoring Aurora Pride.

“I think that’s not the conversation we’re having tonight,” Councilmember Curtis Gardner said on the topic of changing the rules for reserving the reservoir. He also brought up how the council had agreed to spend thousands of dollars on sponsored tables at events hosted by the High Line Canal Conservancy, Colorado State Patrol and other entities.

“I could go on and on through the list of table sponsorships that don’t bring hundreds and thousands of visitors and tax revenue into the city,” Gardner said. “Purely from the standpoint of where we spend our sponsorship dollars, I think it’s right in line with all of the events we sponsor.”

Coffman also said the policy of the reservoir wasn’t what the council was deciding on and mentioned that he planned to attend the event himself.

Ultimately, all council members voted in favor of Coombs’ resolution with the exception of Hancock, who abstained from voting, according to City Clerk Kadee Rodriguez.

Jurinsky promised to bring an ordinance that would prevent organizations from booking the entire reservoir for an event, saying the “fact that previous councils have allowed the reservoir to be shut down for any reason, for any event, I don’t care what the group, what the organization is, is disturbing in and of itself.”

Also on Monday, the council:

• Voted to restate the question headed to Aurora voters this fall of whether the city should continue to ban the ownership of pit bulls in the city, clarifying that a “yes” vote supports allowing ownership of those dogs.
• Approved updated contracts for the city’s unionized police officers and firefighters.
• Agreed to opt out of a state law prohibiting the concealed carry of firearms in city buildings.
• Rejected a proposal in study session to lease a greenhouse owned by the city for use by Food Justice Northwest Aurora.